The Booklet

The booklet has been written to help guide you through this process. There are a number of staff in the academy ready to support you; from your tutor, head of year, subject teachers, to heads of department, careers advisors and senior leaders. All staff know how important it is that you make the right choices, and are ready to help you, so you just need to ask!

Our aim is to make sure that you complete Year 11 in the best possible position to continue your learning, whether that is in employment, an apprenticeship, or in Post 16 education. To access the level 3 Post 16 courses at Macmillan you will need to obtain 5 or more A*-C grades, and to choose from the full range of courses you will need to have C grade or above in GCSE English and mathematics.

The Curriculum

The Government have recently introduced a number of changes to how they assess schools and students. Students are encouraged to study the subjects that contribute to the English Baccalaureate. These are English language, mathematics, science (including computer science), history or geography and French or Spanish. With this in mind we have re-designed the year 10 curriculum for 2014.
In Key Stage 4, English language, English literature, mathematics, science and physical education are compulsory subjects that all students must study. Other important subjects such as citizenship, careers, enterprise, sex education and work related learning are taught through the tutorial programme and special events.
This leaves 9 hours per week that are allocated to optional subjects; the time is divided up into three option pools.

Subject

Hours

English Literature/Language

4

Mathematics

4

Science

6

Physical Education

2

Option A

3

Option B

3

Option C

3

Total

25

Option Blocks

This means you can choose three optional subjects, one from each of the three blocks. Apart from studying enterprise, each student must choose at least one optional eBacc subject. The ebacc subjects are shaded in the table below.

Option A

Option B

Option C

Computing (G)

Computing (G)

Computing (G)

French (G)

French (G)

French (G)

Geography (G)

Geography (G)

Geography (G)

History (G)

History (G)

History (G)

Spanish (G)

Spanish (G)

Spanish (G)

Art (G)

Art (G)

Art (G)

Business Studies (G)

Business Studies (G)

Business Studies (G)

Dance (B)

Catering (G)

Catering (G)

Drama (G)

Graphics (G)

Engineering (B)

Enterprise (NCFE)

ICT (OCR)

Health & Social Care (B)

Health & Social Care (B)

Physical Education (G)

Health & Social Care (G2)

ICT (OCR)

Religious Education (G)

ICT (OCR)

Resistant Materials (G)

Sociology (G)

Music (G)

Sociology (G)

Sport (B)

Physical Education (G)

Qaulifications Key

Code

Qualification

Level

Equivalence

G)

GCSE

1 or 2

1 GCSE A*-G

(G2)

GCSE Double Award

1 or 2

2 GCSE A*-G

(B)

BTEC First Award

1 or 2

Equivalent to 1 GCSE A*-G

(OCR)

OCR National Cerificate

1 or 2

Equivalent to 1 GCSE A*-G

(NCFE)

NCFE Certificate

1 or 2

Equivalent to 1 GCSE D-G

BTEC, OCR and NCFE are vocational qualifications that are assessed differently to GCSEs. In general, a greater proportion of the course is assessed by coursework, and there are fewer exams compared with GCSEs.